With the reverse leg happening at Stamford Bridge, Lampard believes anything is still possible.
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Real Madrid have one foot in the Champions League semifinals after beating Chelsea 2-0 in the first leg of the quarter-finals. Other than the result, the Blues also suffered another setback with Ben Chilwell receiving a red card in the match. It will be an extremely difficult task to overturn a 2-0 deficit against the European champions. However, current Chelsea boss Frank Lampard believes that it is possible in the second leg. That too with the reverse leg happening at Stamford Bridge, he believes anything is still possible.
“It was a big challenge for us,” Lampard was quoted as saying by the club’s website. “The period with 11 men, we were in the game and we had some chances, but I think we could have utilised our strengths better, especially the system with the wing-backs, we could be more urgent. I could see opportunities there tonight and we had good spirit, playing with 10 men in the last half-hour, we didn’t let them have a lot of chances. I liked that part of the game and we have to believe it is possible.”
Lampard was also happy with the spirit Chelsea showed in the game against Real Madrid despite going down to 10 men. “I don’t think they carved us open when we had 10 men, which is due to the spirit we showed and we had chances of our own. We had chances of our own. I can think of three really good opportunities – Joao early on, Raheem’s effort and then Mason’s shot at the end – if we put one of those away, then things look very different,” he elaborated.
“I think there were some good things from our display but the result is a reality. I’ve said to the players in the dressing room though, special things can happen at Stamford Bridge. If you don’t believe in top level sport then things don’t happen for you. The mindset and the belief are a percentage of the game. The fans will believe, they will come and support us. I’ve been involved in games that have changed. The possibilities are ours for the taking.”
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Other than Chilwell getting a red card, the Blues also suffered a big blow through Kalidou Koulibaly’s injury. “For sure, it’s a blow to lose Kalidou through injury. People have to come in and step up though. Marc came in and had to do his job and unfortunately we’ve lost a big player in Chilly. He’s a big player for us and would have been in the second leg too. But like I said, people have to come in and step up,” he added.
Frank Lampard also spoke about how difficult it would have been for the attacking players on Wednesday night. “The game for Raheem [Sterling] and Joao Felix was a tough match. They had to put in a lot of work and their main threat was on the counter-attack or protecting the ball. It was a difficult night for us at the top end of the pitch, but Joao is a big talent, as is Raheem,” he elaborated.
“We’ve got a long 90 minutes of football in the second leg and our approach will need to be a balanced one. I don’t think you can play without balance against Real Madrid because of their attacking threat, but will also need to have an extra attacking urgency in our game. The fans will help, the atmosphere will help but also our job in the meantime is to prepare the team as well as we can to turn the game around, but we have 90 minutes to try do it.”
